Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:52:08 +0000 (GMT)
From: Mike Arram
Subject: Henry in High Politics - 14
The Michael Arram stories are now beginning to appear together at:
http://www.iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/arram
This story contains graphic depictions of sex between young males. If the
reading or possessing of such material as this is illegal in your place of
residence please leave this site immediately and do not proceed further.
If you are under the legal age to read this, please do not do so.
XIV
The next morning David insisted that Ed and Henry come with him to meet
Anton. He was very nervous. After yesterday's excitement, they decided on
a quiet cup of tea in the Botanic Gardens by the river. Anton turned up
looking very nice in summer casuals. David did the Rothenian handshake
thing, and went to kiss him on the cheek. But the Rothenian boy shied
away, looking at Ed and Henry.
`It's OK, Anton,' Henry said, in Rothenian, `we're there too.'
Anton looked at Henry and gave a very shy little grin, the boy was quite
a turn on. `So this is unique,' he said, `an Anglo-Saxon who talks
Rothenian.'
`Excuse the directness,' said Henry, pushing the boat out a bit and
sticking to Anton's native language, `but David's worried about the
unprotected sex you had last night.'
Anton looked startled and then nodded, `He needn't be. I'm clean and I
knew he was a virgin.'
Henry frowned, `Well make sure you tell him, but take your time ... he
deserves to sweat over that piece of recklessness.' He turned to David, `I
was just saying that me and Ed need to get along and leave you and Anton to
get to know each other. Maybe see you for dinner.' He added a little
maliciously, `Play safe now.'
As they wandered off, Ed said, `Pretty couple they make. It's a pity
they've only got a couple of days together.'
`Maybe ... but it's the summer romance thing isn't it. Days of stolen
passion, all the sweeter for being so few. How about that for Henry
wisdom?'
`Superlative, little babe ... if trite.'
David went missing that afternoon. He failed to turn up for dinner and
didn't check back into his bedroom at the hotel. Friday morning Terry was
getting frantic. `That little sod's gonna get me into deep shit. If I
don't deliver him back in good nick to school on Sunday, there're going to
be some serious and difficult questions asked of Henry's dad. What is the
kid playing at?'
`It's love Terry, it does weird things to us all. You know that.' Henry
said, but he too was worried. They had no contact number for Anton, and
David had turned off his mobile.
On Friday evening Terry patrolled the Wejg and Rodolferplaz restlessly.
He relentlessly questioned regulars at Club Liberation. Several knew
Anton, but not where he lived or much else about him except that he was hot
and available to the right sort of young guy. Justin joined him and
started chatting to the more dubious residents of the Wejg, the rent boys
who clustered in doorways two blocks down from the club. They weren't much
use although one claimed to have been paid by Anton for a blowjob. Justin
didn't believe him, but shrugged and chatted with the prostitutes anyway.
He grinned when he got propositioned by a big German bloke. `Not enough to
take a cock like yours mate, I'm sure me colleague here will be happy to
assist.'
Unusually, it was Nathan who picked up David's track. He had decided to
try out the waiters in the gay cafes near Liberation with a picture of
David he had on his mobile, and he struck gold with one. `Yes. He was in
here with a pretty blond boy this evening. They held hands. It was quite
sweet. They walked off to the National Opera, I think they were going to
the Stravinsky concert.'
So Nathan, Justin and Terry lurked in the portico of the Strelzen Opera
House at ten thirty as the doors opened and the crowd flooded out. Anton
and David came out together, and Anton was startled to find himself
surrounded and blocked by three determined and fit young men.
`So David,' said Terry, `maybe you can tell me when you were thinking of
turning up? We go back tomorrow.'
David looked defiant. `I'm staying on.'
`You told your parents?'
`I will do. I'm staying with Anton. What we've got going is just too
good to let go. I may never have another chance like this in all my life.'
`And you will live how?'
`Anton's got a little apartment. I'll get a job. We'll survive.'
`And your A Levels, university, friends?'
`I'll pick up with all that later. But I've found the love of my life.'
`David,' said Terry, `you are seventeen, and you have found a lover. You
have not found the love of your life.'
David gave him a hard look, `And how old was Ramon when he met you?'
`That's not comparable. I at least knew all about sex. This is just
your dick in shock. Mr Atwood will get in terrible trouble if you don't
turn up in school on Sunday. Would you want to be responsible for that
sort of shit? How about you, Anton? Want a live-in lover in your little
apartment do you?'
Anton looked harassed. `David and I have something going. It's true.
But hey ... I don't want any trouble, I mean ... him to get in any trouble.
David, you've got to think of your friends and parents.'
Terry gave a tight little grin. Anton had been having fun with what he
believed was a rich western kid. He was not up for consequences. Now it
was David's turn to look harrassed. `This is all bollocks. I'm old enough
to do what I want,' he said.
`And not old enough to do what is right,' returned Terry coolly. `Here,
Anton. You seem a nice kid. Be fair. Do you need a lodger?'
Anton took David's hand, `To be honest, David. It really would not be
convenient, much though I like you.'
David looked deeply shocked and then distraught, `You ... don't want me
with you?'
Anton wasn't a bad man and he saw the fragile heart in front of him
cracking, `You're a lovely person David, and quite something in bed, but it
wouldn't be right for either of us.'
It was too much for David, his eyes flooded and he blushed scarlet. He
looked round wildly, his mouth open, and then with an unbearable look that
made even Terry ashamed, he stalked off. Terry sighed, `Follow him you
two, and don't let him get near the river.'
The trip back to the UK was nowhere near as pleasant -- nor as dangerous --
as the trip out to Rothenia had been. David looked like he was in dream of
his own as they loaded the Medwardine minibus. He ignored everyone, even
Henry. He slumped in a corner and watched the landscape pass by with no
interest whatsoever. They stopped for lunch at Leipzig, and he sat in the
van, `Not hungry,' he said with perfect politeness and total indifference.
They all looked at Terry in the service station carvery. `Don't look at
me. If I knew a cure for a broken heart it'd be a different bloke sitting
here, babes. Get some sarnies in the shop, he might feel hungry later.'
David was asleep when they got back in the van, and slept on all afternoon.
Henry said he thought he'd not slept the night before, when Justin and
Nathan had brought him back. They talked quietly together about their week
in Rothenia.
Nathan and Justin were a lot happier together now. There had been
decisions made and a lot of talking between them. Terry was going back
into the security business. `It woke me up little babes. Without Ramon I
ain't gonna make it on the stage. So I'm taking on contract work for
PeacherCorp. I'm buying a flat in the East End, and taking offices near
Canary Wharf. Andy's already getting his people to find me a place. Iss
time to do the big thing and commit to the future. O'Brien Security
Associates is going into business. And me first associate is Justin
Peacher-White.'
`What!!' said Ed and Henry, though they kept the volume down with David
flat out on the back seat.
Nathan said, with some regret, `My chavvy babe's good at it,
unfortunately. I won't stand in his way. He'll still live with me at
Haddesley Hall, and he'll work in the garden centre between contracts, but
he has his gifts and his own career. It'll be hard, but I love him too
much to argue against it.'
Justin cuddled into Nathan, `You're a good man, lover. It'll make for
plenty to talk about when I'm home wiv you in our cottage. Sides, the
prices Terry charges, I'm gonna make meself a mint.'
They reached Rotterdam with plenty of time for the overnight ferry to
Harwich. David woke up bleary-eyed and accompanied them up to the
cafeteria and sipped listlessly at a coffee and nibbled some biscuits.
Then he slipped away. Henry found him later sitting out under the stars on
the deck. He snuggled up to David, took his hand and kissed it.
`It's awful seeing you like this, Davey.' David grunted. `It won't seem
so bad in a few weeks.'
`I'll never forgive him,' David said with cold decision.
`Anton wasn't that bad a bloke, David. Just out for a good time with a
handsome guy ... the handsome guy is you, incidentally.'
`I wasn't talking about Anton. It's that fucking Terry O'fucking Brien!
He's ruined my life the cunt. OK. He may have lost all his own happiness
with Ramon gone, but he's fucking making sure no one else is happy either.'
`Now hold on ...'
`It's no point you defending him, Henry. Oh yeah, it was the sensible
thing. Back to the UK and back to school, and then university and then a
job in some fucking boring fucking bank, but in the meantime, I've lost the
chance -- don't care how feeble -- of real happiness with a super bloke
with a super body in the most amazing city in the world.'
`It didn't look that promising a relationship at first sight ... though
Anton was a bit gorgeous,' Henry admitted
`Not the point, Henry. It's back to hopeless Medwardine, where I'll
never meet anyone near as sexy as Anton; a year of celibacy, and then on to
some grey university, where the most romantic bloody thing likely to happen
will be consciousness-raising seminars in some poxy and earnest Gaysoc.
It's not life Henry, not the way we've lived it for the past week, it's a
treadmill.'
Henry had to admit that David had a point of sorts. What David was
forgetting was that he was only seventeen, and a lot of life stretched
ahead of him. Even Henry realised he just couldn't see past the pain at
the moment. It looked like time would have to be the healer here.
Nobody got much sleep that night. David didn't come down off the deck
and his bed in Terry's cabin was not needed. He looked like shit in the
morning, but then he didn't seem to give a shit either. Terry drove them
to Paddington and Ed and Henry got a loving hug from him. Henry winced
when Terry reached out to David. He was sharply and coldly rebuffed.
`Look I'm sorry, right?' Terry said, `Davey, you couldn't just give up
your future in a gamble on a doomed relationship.'
David just looked levelly at him and said, `Fuck you. If I see you again
it won't be for want of trying to avoid you.'
Terry looked deeply shocked. Nathan said, `Mate, that was too strong.
You had no call to speak to Terry like that.'
`Fuck you too, fuck the whole lot of you.' He stormed off towards the
concourse. They looked at each other.
Henry said regretfully, `Don't take it too much to heart, Terry. He'll
come round in the end.'
`Yeah ... yeah, I suppose.' Terry looked as though something had deflated
inside him. But he rallied, hugged Ed and Henry again, and said he looked
forward to seeing them over the summer some time. Then Justin and Nathan
said their goodbyes, and Terry took them off to Liverpool Street to catch
their own train. The van would be taken back to Medwardine next week by a
contract driver.
The train delivered them on time at Shrewsbury, which was unusual for a
Sunday. Henry's dad was waiting and was full of curiosity about the
historic events they had witnessed in Strelzen. He didn't notice that only
two out of the three boys in his car were being communicative. He dropped
Ed and David off at the school before taking Henry home. He dropped the
bags in the hall of the rectory with a certain relief. He hugged his
waiting mother and, after some tea and exchange of news, took himself off
to his bedroom where he had a gratefully early night. There really was no
place like home.